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Friday, August 26, 2016

My Frank Frazetta Interview with Heritage Auctions' Weldon Adams

Widely
regarded as the foremost American artist of the fantastic and outré, the late,
great Frank Frazetta carved out a career drawing funny animal comic books and classic
adventure strips, but he’s best known
for his otherworldly paintings of musclebound men, buxom women, alien
landscapes and terrifying monsters. His art has graced book covers, magazine
covers, movie posters and more, including album covers for bands as diverse as Molly Hatchet, Herman’s Hermits, and Nazareth.

Frazetta
was a commercial artist, but his works are considered as important as those of most
any contemporary fine artist. His sketches, drawings, and paintings routinely sell
for big bucks, and many of his creations grace the walls of the Frazetta Art
Museum in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania in the heart of the Pocono Mountains.

Recently, Heritage Auctions facilitated the sale of Frazetta’s At
the Earth’s Core, which was used for the cover of an Edgar Rice Burroughs paperback. It sold tfor $1,075,500, the most ever paid for a
Frazetta work in a public auction. Shortly after the auction, I interviewed my friend Weldon Adams, the Comic and Animation Art Specialist at Heritage
Auctions in Dallas about the sale, and about Frazetta in general.

BRETT WEISS:Do you remember the first time you saw
a Frazetta work? If so, what was it, and what did you think of it?WELDON ADAMS: I can’t remember the exact piece, but I am quite sure it was one of the John
Carter novel covers. I learned about his earlier careers in both comic strips
and comic books after the fact. I knew him as a master painter first.

ADAMS: I
was not a collector of his work per se. But it did grace the covers of some of
my favorite novels. In recent years, I am really very taken with his comic
strip work in the 1950s. So I keep an eye on any of the Johnny Comet strips
that come through Heritage Auctions. Also, any of the Li’l Abner dailies from
the era that he assisted Al Capp.

WEISS: If you could own one Frank Frazetta item,
regardless of the price (something you couldn’t simply sell), what would it be?

ADAMS: That
would have to be the original art for the reissue of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars. That Frazetta painted cover is so iconic. You can see it echoed over and over again in fandom. Compare it to the original movie poster
for “Star Wars” (IV: A New Hope) by the brothers Hildebrandt. It is easy to
spot that influence.

WEISS: Why do art critics typically prefer
Frazetta to such similar painters as Boris, Jeff Jones and Ken Kelly? Is it
strictly because they came after Frazetta, or is it something else?

ADAMS: Likely
a combination of factors. However, it is hard to ignore Frazetta structure and
skill in the mechanics of how he lays out an image. He makes it powerful and
dynamic. The others learned from that and built upon it.

WEISS: When and why did Frazetta become a
household word? Was it the Tarzan PB covers?

ADAMS: Pretty
much, yes. The ERB Tarzan novels were always a bit more popular than the John
Carter of Mars series. But between the two of them, they cemented his
reputation as THE cover painter for novels. So working on the ERB franchise
reissues was probably the best synthesis of cover painter and novel content
that has ever happened, rivaled possibly only by Boris Vallejo’s work on the Robert E. Howard Conan novels.

WEISS: Fantasy art is more respected than it
used to be. In your opinion, why is this so?

ADAMS: Fantasy
in general has come out of the shadows. The entire genre is more respected now. Generations
have grown up reading Tolkien, Burroughs, , Anne McCaffery’s Pern
series, and watching Ray Harryhausen animation in fantasy movies such as
Sinbad. So fantasy art is more ingrained for them. And the generations who grew
up playing D&D have demanded more fantasy art as well. Fantasy art has
gotten more sophisticated as the same time. The pageantry of TV’s Game of
Thrones owes much to that.

WEISS: What was it like holding the million
dollar painting in your hands?

ADAMS: Honestly,
I was giddy. And just to see that piece up close and personal was a huge treat.

Anytime
you can see a historical artifact from your childhood, it’s a special thing. And
of course, holding a single thing that is worth over a million dollars is
mind-blowing.

WEISS: Looking at a Van Gogh in person is much
different than seeing a print. The color, the energy, the thick brush strokes…Is there a similar effect with Frazetta. In other words, what’s different about
looking at a Frazetta original than looking at a print?

ADAMS: There
is detail in the work that is simply not reproduced well in any book cover or
poster print to date. There are soft, subtle lines and colors, and hidden
details in the background that are covered up by cover text and logos. Much
like any museum masterpiece, you can stare at this for hours.

WEISS: Why did that painting in particular
sell for so much? Is there something special about it compared to his other
works?

ADAMS: The
novel At The Earth’s Core was the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ stories set
in his ‘lost world’ of Pellucidar. Although Lost World stories are their own
sub-genre of fantasy, this is one of the earliest and best. It first appeared
as a serialized story in the pulp magazine All-Story Weekly in 1914, and was
first collected into a novel in 1922. It was reprinted several times, with this
stunning Frazetta work used on the 1970s reprints of the story. Science Fiction
and Fantasy were making a comeback in the 1970s, so the timing on this was just
right to imprint upon the memories of an entire generation of fans. Fans who
would go on to create and influence the genre even more.

As
for comparing it to his other works, this piece just simply has it all. Frank Frazetta is known for his gorgeous women from work produced in his comic book
and comic strip days. Here he had a chance to illustrate one of those
characteristically lovely “Frazetta women” and juxtapose her against his more
fantasy style. A style he began to develop in those comic book days as well, The
image tells a rich and moving story in one image, and it’s an essential part of
the tale as well.

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About Me

A freelance writer, I'm the author of the Classic Home Video Games series, The 100 Greatest Console Video Games: 1977-1987, Encyclopedia of KISS, and other books. I've had articles published in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Filmfax, Fangoria, AntiqueWeek, The Writer, Mystery Scene, and more.
Contact me at brettw105 AT sbcglobal.net.